Today we motored a few miles to anchor at Rat Cay.  In the photo at the left, Ultra is just ahead of us.  Looking closely at the picture, you can see Joanne on the bow of Ultra and I am sitting on our bow.  We are practicing what is called “eyeball navigation,” looking in the crystal clear water for reefs, rocks, and wrecks.

There are a few other boats here, but we are around a small island from them so once again we are in a secluded area.  Just as we dropped the anchor our oatmeal apple bread was finished in the breadmaker, so we had a nice lunch of hot bread.  Daisy was hoping for some and she did get a little crust.  As shown in the photo above, she always waits patiently until we are finished for her “treat.” Now that the weather is warm, we have moved the larger table into the cockpit area and the smaller one into the salon.  It’s great to be able to eat our meals “outside” now.

This was a work day for Ultra, Avalon, and Seas the Day.  Mark spent several hours plumbing a line from one hull to the other for the watermaker.  Now we can make water for all three tanks (two in the port hull and one in the starboard hull) without having to run a tube outside over the salon. 

As soon as we arrived, Mark ran the wifi extender outside and I was thrilled to see we have a good wifi signal from a marina.  Again, it is $10 a day, but we haven’t been able to check e-mail or upload our website for five days.  I paid online, but when I tried to log on, the message “login incorrect” kept appearing.  I called the phone number of the tech help, but only got voice mail.  It looks like tomorrow we’ll have to take a dinghy ride to the nearby marina and see why the wifi isn’t working.  I had a phone signal today, but tonight the Bahama phone says “no service.”  For the first time Jennifer did not get through with her 9:30 pm call.  I think the problem is the high hills here, blocking our signal.

After we all finished working, we decided to take a dinghy ride around the cay.  There are houses here, and even a very upscale private island called Little Pipe Cay which looks like a resort. At one house, there were two dogs who chased us up and down the shore.  We saw three huge rays came swimming by us.

We’ll stay here tomorrow, but will take the dinghy to Sampson Cay to get some fuel in cans.  We haven’t had diesel since we were in Nassau, which is two weeks ago.  While we haven’t moved very far after the trip to Norman’s Cay, we have used the generator each day for an hour or two.  Our fuel gauge is not accurate so we have to keep a record of how many hours we use the generator.  Our tank holds 80 gallons and we consume about .8 gallons an hour whether motoring or just using the genset to charge the batteries. 

No doubt we’ll go snorkeling tomorrow also.  We checked out a few areas this afternoon as we took our dinghy tour.

One thing we have been noticing is that we are traveling near a group of boats.  We see them occasionally and hear them calling each other on the VHF radio every day.  Everyone heading south will probably get to Georgetown, the last large city in the Exumas, spend some time there, and head back north or stay there for the rest of the winter season.  We’ll head north to Abaco. The three of us, Ultra, Avalon, and Seas the Day, feel fortunate to have met each other in Bimini.  We get along well and enjoy each other’s company.   It’s great to share the experiences with these new friends.  Click here for more photos.